Art & Science: A Curriculum for K–12 Teachers from the J. Paul Getty Museum

For the first time, the award-winning Education Department of the J. Paul Getty Museum is making one of its much-lauded K–12 curricula available nationwide in an attractive and inexpensive print format. Art & Science was developed by the Getty’s expert educators, scientists, curators, and conservators, and tested by classroom teachers, and it connects to national and California state standards. Teachers and parents will find engaging lessons and activities divided into beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels for step-by-step learning.

Art & Science mines the treasures of the Getty Museum to explore the many intersections of the visual arts with scientific disciplines. Full-color images of antiquities, decorative arts, drawings, manuscripts, painting, photography, and sculpture illuminate lesson plans about, for example:

• The laws of physics that keep a bronze sculpture of a juggler from tipping over
• The science that allows photographers to manipulate light and capture images on paper
• The processes of radiation and convection that turn clay into porcelain
• Scientific observation of the natural world as the subject for art
• How scientists removed 2,000 years of oxidation and encrustation to reveal a priceless ancient sculpture

The curriculum also contains a trove of resources, including handouts, “Questions for Teaching,” a timeline, glossary, and list of print and web sources for further research. There are also links to additional related lessons and images available on the Getty website. The full-page color images and special “lay flat” binding of Art & Science make it ideal for use with a digital document reader.